Apple Worked With A ‘Double Agent’ To Infiltrate Leakers, According To Report
Image via TRMK / Shutterstock.com
Apple has been cracking down on employees who have been selling secrets to outsiders, and it’s succeeded by working with people like tech leaker Andrey Shumeyko to obtain information about how the leak and jailbreaking community works.
Shumeyko, known online by his handles ‘YRH04E’ and ‘JVHResearch’, had been working as a “double agent” for the tech giant for over a year. Being a tech leaker himself, he was able to get close to others who also shared confidential information and revealed stolen Apple prototypes on platforms like Twitter and Discord.
Motherboard obtained email exchanges between Shumeyko and personnel of Apple’s anti-leak department, which is officially named Global Security, and confirmed the correspondences’ authenticity by checking that they had come from Apple’s servers.
It was Shumeyko who approached Apple for a partnership, explaining that he was feeling remorseful about doing the underground work and would “do whatever you need me to redeem my past actions” in exchange for a financial incentive.
“People trust me, and find me pretty likable, and so I’m capable of using that to my advantage,” he persuaded the Global Security team.
However, Shumeyko decided to reveal himself to Motherboard as he felt that he was getting the short end of the stick, since Apple wasn’t paying him.
He alleged that in May 2020, he had disclosed with Apple the identity of an individual who purchased a stolen iPhone 11 prototype, resulting in a version of the then-unreleased iOS 14 being leaked online.
Shumeyko also apparently revealed the identity of an Apple employee in Germany who was selling access to an internal account. That worker was later dismissed by the company.
“Me coming forward is mostly me finally realizing that that relationship never took into consideration my side and me as a person… Now it feels like I ruined someone for no good reason, really,” he told the news outlet.
You can read about Shumeyko’s alleged work as a “double agent” in remarkable detail here.
[via Motherboard, cover image via TRMK / Shutterstock.com]
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